Combo wrench question/HOME shop

[wantedabiggergarage]

Do those of you who were/are single, hang your wrenchs out?

Trying to get some more room in the toolbox for other stuff, and since I have no little hands wandering off with stuff, I was wondering that. From my experiences, it seems they tend to get locked up when, they aren't duplicates, they are good ones (high dollar), or when the owner has kids (going through the disrespect stage).

Looking at some other tools, so another box is out right now.

Thanks

 

[milly]

All of my wrenchs are safely stored away in the tool boxes. If I were to ever hang some wrenchs, I'd leave the high dollar ones in the box and hang some cheap ones that I don't really care about. That way if one disappears, I won't care.



Oh, who am I kidding?? If one comes up missing, I'll be upset.

 

[Coach James]

milly, I'm with you. if a 25 cent tool came up missing, I would be irate.

As to storage, I keep mine in my roll away or tool boxes stored under my workbench. I also made two boxes out of 1x6 boards with pad lock clasps on them to store other tools in.
Coach

 

[eschoendorff]

I keep all of my wrenches in my box or in my cart. The only ones that are hanging up are my adjustables: a 4" Proto, a 16" Penens, and a 24" piece of chi-com slag.

 

[boiler7904]

I'd find a way to put them all away. Even if it meant putting less used or duplicate items in a basic plastic hand box that you can get in any hardware store. My main reason is that anything hanging on the wall when the door is open is on display for anyone walking or driving by. Nothing like announcing what's available.

I'm starting to build storage into my garage now. Since my budget doesn't allow for Lista cabinets or a rolling cabinet, the plan is to keep it simple for now with the thought of expansion in the future. I have a 6 drawer Craftsman top chest that will go on one end of my workbench and I'll add a shelf below the bench for power tools in cases and hand tools in boxes.

 

[wantedabiggergarage]

Unfortunately for me, my shop is in the basement. The garage was built between 23 and 35 so it.s SMALL, uninsulated, unwired, etc. Not to mention the local drug houses

But you all gave me an idea about locking them up. I might just hang them up on the pegboard, but place that inside a lockable cabinet.
Thanks

 

[chevy302dz]

It sounds like your area is pretty bad, I'd lock them up and lock them up good. Good tools sell easy and therefore disappear quickly.

 

[ChucksCrib]

....... a 16" Penens,........

Dude You should be doin' ****

 

[ChucksCrib]

Oh...I guess I mis-read that the first time

 

[eschoendorff]

Dude You should be doin' ****

 

[binder56jd]

those pegboard hanging racks take up too much valuable wall space for my liking - kinda one of those things that looks good on paper or in someone else's shop- 2 cents

 

[Ign]

I used to have all my wrenches hanging on pegboard in my old shop and I loved it. Just walk to the wall, grab a wrench. All at chest level, easy to access. Only works well for small(er) shops. I say go for it.

Frees up a LOT of room in the rollaway, that's why I did it. And arguably easier to slip a wrench over a hook rather than open a drawer, set it into a holder, and close the drawer. I'm still contemplating doing this again in my old shop, even tho I'm getting a much larger box.

 

[Rickster]

My Dad used the peg board and tools on hooks with us, he had them between the studs and off the wall just a bit so the hook supports would just clear the wall. I just positioned one of my older tool boxes nearer the door than the rest so that its the first box you encounter on your way to "get a tool". Here I left a collection of older screwdrivers, wrenches and pliers in the top two drawers. This kind of heads off any raiding of my good stuff.

 

[MarkH]

Having used pegboards most of my life until a very recent move I can give some pretty good comments. I liked them as they freed up a very large amount of space and made the tools very handy. With an oversized double car garage with a full length bench and pegboard there was the need for only one tool cabinet. In our larger farm shops it worked even better.

People are talking about things missing, but it is the ones from the tool cabinet that have always caused me trouble. Most folks do not have each individual tool given a specific individual assigned place in either tool cabinets. Yes some do, but to be honest most do not. Peg board forces you to have an individual assigned place for each tool and you know very easily it is missing. Even if you know what is in a cabinet for most people it takes longer to inventory them.

When farming our shops with tool cabinets easily lost 3 times as many tools as the ones with pegboards. It was just so much easier to do daily inventory off the pegboards and track down the missing items. I know large shops use tool cabinets but unlike us the tools are privately owned with a person to lock them up and make sure each tool gets in the right box.

Pegs are not bad and can be done fairly inexpensively for private use. It is also very easy and inexpensive to build a wood cabinet around ones you do not want to have seen. Also look there are multiple options for pegs and holders that can be used and hold almost anything you can imagine. If not it is very easy to make what you need.

 

[wilbilt]

I have been hesitating before posting this, but I guess now is as good a time as any.
To me, hanging tools out on pegboard screams "I am a homeowner with a garage...look at my tools...most of which I don't even use...!"

My tools have always been housed in chests, cabinets, or boxes. They are arranged so that anything missing is instantly noticable and indentifiable.

When not in use, they are locked up. They don't get locked up until everything is where it is supposed to be.

In shops where I have worked, there was always a plea to leave my box unlocked on my days off, vacations, etc. The shop tools always sucked, or were broken, missing, incapable, etc.

I always made a point to allow one day as a trial, with the understanding if anything was not put away by the next morning, my box would be locked up whenever I was not there.

Without exception, I would be hunting down tools when I returned. The shop guys would be left to work with the shop tools, which were supposed to be stored on a pegboard setup. They were usually lying all over the floor, though.

If the shop management used the pegboard as an inventory check, as has been suggested, it might have worked. Unfortunately, their solution to missing tools was to assume they could use mine instead.

In a private home shop, I can't see any reason to hang tools out except as a decorative thing. If you actually value your tools for their capabilities, they will be locked up.

Will in NorCal

 

[MarkH]

Tool storage is never fun and the design of it really is an issue we all have to face. Different places would have me doing different things. If I worked in a multi-person shop with my private tools, a large locked box preferably with other safety devices, high voltage or otherwise comes to mind.

On the farms we have had where you may have 5 people pass by the shop and need to fix something. For example me in the am the final tuning on a tractor to head out, mid am someone with a broken haybine, noon oil change on a grain truck, afternoon adjustments on a bale cruiser, and someone else working a preharvest set up on a combine. All needing access to tools and no place for individual owned and since it is all our equipment another issue. At the end of the day before the last meal it was the managers job to inventory all tools and get the missing back. Meaning everyone had to pick up, it was amazing where we found the missing ones. Went about twice as fast with pegs and lost less. Also we had less value on wall space, with drill presses, welders, torches, anvils, forges, etc our floor space was at a premium. That worked well for us may not be for everyone.

At home you do what works for you

 

[wilbilt]

MarkH, good points, all of them.

At home, I don't share my tools with anyone. hanging them on the wall, to me, would be like marching naked in the July 4th parade.